 My dad, he was a conservationist growing up. A lot of it was more, you know, to conserve moisture and money than to build things. He thinks I'm a little crazy for trying to grow two crops at once instead of growing a one. So you saw him down in the disbine. He started cutting down some Ryan alfalfa mix for hay. So he's still working some partially retired now. He doesn't have a whole lot to do with cattle anymore. He's still comes back and helps a lot. So and then we've got other family members that are very integral parts of keeping things moving. I am Candace Olson-Mazera. I am, we live near McLaughlin, South Dakota, in north central South Dakota. And we farm in a ranch about 600 cows and rotationally graze and farm about 10,000 acres. Our family has been in this area since the 20s. They purchased this ranch that we're on in 74. My grandpa did. And so there was minor rotational grazing out on the place. The pastures were about 1,000 acres apiece. And back in the day, there was everybody distend drilled and that's where you farmed and summer followed and cultivated and everything. So dad switched to no-till in the 90s and we went all no-till and planted cover crops and started rotational grazing here in the last five years. We have really intensified our rotational grazing and use of cover crops. My husband, Bob, is very much involved. We're partners. Fourteen years ago, Bob and I got married. And we were still calving heifers in February or the 10th of March and then cows start 15th or 20th of March. And he just said, well, this is about the stupidest thing I've ever seen. He said, why don't we push this back for killing ourselves to save a few calves and the ones that you don't save? You can't sell dead ones. So let's just have a little bit smaller calf in the fall and let's push it back. And so make our lives a little easier. You can get our farmland done most of the time before cabin even starts. So April 23rd is what we shoot for now. Then they're calving right on primarily greening grass and the nutritional level is much better for them. So as long as we're watching for grass standing because we do have quite a bit of tame grass where we cat. And we've been rotating, well, this year we weren't close to a barn at all. We were four miles away from the closest barn. So we just set up a tub next to a corral and had a few that we had to get in, but otherwise they think they can have a lot better on their own when the weather is nicer too. Just more and more relaxed. So we were mob grazing. We started out on 160 acres and about 620 cows there. And they were there from April 1st until April 29th or so. And then they went to the next quarter and, yeah, we're trying to control our Kentucky bluegrass. We've got quite the invasion going on. Kentucky bluegrass, yeah, it does have a deeper base. It actually gets a layer of matter of rits on the surface that can actually help shed water so it doesn't infiltrate water as well. It has a competitive advantage because of that. People start choking out your western, your green needle, needle thread, other warm-season grasses. I've been working with Candace and Bob on their grazing system for about five years now and it's been pretty enjoyable for one just to see the amount of grass that we're growing now compared to what we were before. It was in good shape before, but it's getting even better. We had a bad drought in 2002. And so Dad started out fencing all a bunch of the fields because there was nothing else to graze. And in 06 he actually shipped his cows all the way up to Mandarin, North Dakota, because we had another severe drought and he wasn't going to overgraze that time. And then we finished fencing a lot of his fields then and grazing the cows that fall on fields when they came back from North Dakota. Now we try to get the cows, they stay on grass until about the end of October. We try to get the cows and calves out on cover crops, which we plant right behind the wheat or chickpea ground or rye harvest or pretty much chasing the combines around plant and cover crops. For trying to get them out on every acre is what we're shooting for, as we think it has a positive impact on them converting nutrients and spreading manure and urine around to help fertilize. And especially if we feed out there we try to put our hay back on the hay ground that it came off of is what we're shooting for. So we're not constantly exporting nutrients and carbon off the land, so we're adding it back to it. So on a normal day I wake up and usually feed the calf in the barn if there's any bottle calves and then we go check cows and do whatever needs done for the day, whether it be fencing, taking out mineral, helping the guys in the candidates move fields if we're planting or harvesting or whatever. I guess just kind of jump in wherever I'm needed. My best day is probably just waking up and going to do cow stuff, I guess. I love cows. A good day is, well, number one, waking up in the morning. Yeah, that's always fun. You can see in the sunrise is great, but getting to work alongside family, getting to teach cater things and having to ask questions and help out and learn and that means a lot. Getting on the fresh air, seeing how it's cliche but fruits of your labor over the years and how things are improving and especially when it rains. A rainy day is one of my best days. Work till dark, have supper with the family, call her a day, hopefully sleep good, wake up and do it again, and somebody else to clean the house and do dishes.